Never has there been a series that has made viewers love and sympathize with a sadistic serial killer like Dexter. The character Dexter Morgan was a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro, P.D., the perfect job to give him access and knowledge to perform his carefully planned kills. After being found out by his police officer father as a young boy, Dexter was trained to use his "dark passenger" for good and only kill the 'bad guys."
While killers, pedophiles, thieves, and abusers ended up on Dexter's signature table– where he confronted them, killed them, and butchered their bodies– his hunt for serial killers made for a delicious cat and mouse game.
And while all vile, some of these serial killers were worse than others. So, who were the most villainous serial killers featured on the series? Here they are, ranked.
The Doomsday Killer/Travis Marshall
Colin Hanks is great and all. But as a serial killer? He just didn't cut it and wasn't convincing enough as a villain. Real name Travis Marshall, Dexter instantly recognized The Doomsday Killer for who he was.
He created elaborate biblical tableaus with each kill, as if into theatrics and religion as much as murder. Sadly (actually, thankfully) Dexter got to him before he could complete his religiously significant 12th kill, ending his sick game.
The Brain Surgeon/Oliver Saxon
While Dexter was arguably one of the best television series ever to grace the small screen, its final seasons were lacking. And near the top of the list of meekest serial killers to be featured is Oliver Saxon, a.k.a. The Brain Surgeon.
He was supposed to be a mirror of who Dexter once was before he started making human connections. Except been there, done that with the Ice Truck Killer who was an exact demonstration of who Dexter could have been (he was his actual brother, after all). So when it comes to villains, he was more copycat than compelling.
The Skinner/George King
He wasn't exactly one of the most interesting serial killers on the series, but he was a vicious one who eventually admitted to liking torturing and killing people. On the hunt for Dexter after he was framed for Miguel Prado's murder, King eventually captured Dexter, but the tables were quickly turned and he ended up dead in what looked like a suicide.
He loved, as the name implied, to skin his victims as a form of sadistic torture, presumably to get information he wanted. But, as Dexter got him to realize, also because he sort of enjoyed it.
The Poisoner/Hannah McKay
While Hannah McKay wasn't exactly positioned as a terrifying, gruesome killer, she was, in actuality, a very villainous serial killer. Unlike others, however, she worked in a quiet yet truly evil way so no one ever knew or even suspected who or what she was, except Dexter.
She had a rough upbringing with a strained relationship with her father, found herself on a road trip with a killer as a teen, and was sexually abused when in a juvenile facility. Nonetheless, if she got angry at someone or felt she needed to defend herself, she used her knowledge of flowers and plants to develop the perfect deadly, and untraceable, concoction.
The Wolf/Isaak Sirko
While Volk as he was called, which is Russian for "The Wolf," might come across as handsome and charming, rub him the wrong way and he won't think twice before stabbing your eye out with a screwdriver.
He was a fierce and skilled fighter, and while he had a sense of loyalty, he was also the kind of man who would force an associate to commit suicide in order to protect the brotherhood. The Wolf was as close to the typical villain type you'd see in the movies.
Jordan Chase/The Barrel Girl Gang
There was just something about Jordan Chase– a handsome, charismatic young man who was wealthy, wore a suit, and did speaking engagements to sold out rooms– that made him a truly villainous killer living a total double life.
He didn't work alone, but rather roped in four other accomplices as part of the The Barrel Girl Gang, all of whom did the dirty work for him. He got them to nab girls for him under the guise of connecting with their inner "primal" selves – this was his form of life coaching. Thanks to Dexter and his new partner Lumen, however, they were all taken out, one by one.
Boyd Fowler/The Barrel Girl Gang
One of Chase's male helpers in The Barrel Girl Gang was Fowler, who was employed with Miami-Dade county, responsible for animal pickup. Except he picked up far more than roadkill.
He was tasked with grabbing women that Chase and others could abuse. At first, Dexter was unsure about whether he really was evil since Boyd swore he thought his actions were merciful. Except knowing he threw girls into barrels and electrocuted them without a second thought showed that he was a cruel and terrifying villain, even if he didn't want to believe it himself.
The Ice Truck Killer/Brian Moser/Rudy Cooper
Cheesy twist aside that revealed Brian Moser, a.k.a. The Ice Truck Killer, to be Dexter's long-lost little brother, he was the very first killer featured on the show and the one who set the stage for all others to come.
He showed just how easy it was to fool people, starting up a romantic relationship with Dexter's adoptive sister and taunting Dexter along the way, finally trying to convince him to join him over in the dark side. He was reminiscent of the Ted Bundy-type serial killer who could transform in an instant from wide-smiled charismatic man to a dead-in-the-eyes sadistic killer.
Bay Harbor Butcher/Dexter Morgan
Interestingly, Dexter Morgan himself ranks among the most villainous because not only did he kill the most people on-screen, totalling about 135, he also managed to evade authorities thanks to the fact that his job was integral to helping them find the perpetrator and keeping him one step ahead at all times.
Dexter's clean-up jobs were going well until bodies starting washing up and police discovered hundreds of them neatly wrapped in garbage bags and dismembered. Oops. Nonetheless, Dexter had a method. He was precise, clean, and never (or rarely) diverted from his kill "code." Even though he rationalized his kills and justified them based on the heinous things his victims did, he was still, when it really came down to it, a villain who took human lives for no other reason than to satisfy his own Dark Passenger.
Trinity Killer/Arthur Mitchell
John Lithgow has arguably never had a role that made as much an impact on popular culture as this one. The Trinity Killer, a.k.a. Arthur Mitchell, was an older man who had been traveling the U.S. for decades, building houses with a charitable organization. But really, he was kidnapping, torturing, and murdering women & young boys all across the U.S., moving away just in time to evade police once an investigation began.
He is the one killer to truly get into Dexter's head. And while Dexter finally captured and killed him, Trinity got the last laugh, so to speak, as he had kept Dexter busy enough to visit his wife Rita and leave her brutally murdered in the bathtub.